This invention relates to smoking devices and more particularly to smoking devices having a self-igniting feature.
The idea for a combination smoking device and lighter has been known for almost 100 years, see U.S. Pat. No. 1,053,039 to Karnes, which teaches a cumbersome pipe/lighter/storage compartment combination, which meets the functional requirements for a self-igniting smoking device at the cost of considerable distraction in the appearance of the device.
Typical techniques for achieving a combined smoking device and lighter include the idea of mimicking a human in lighting the combustible smoking material as would be accomplished by an external match or lighter in which the flame is applied to the top of the bowl. See, for example U.S. Pat. No. 1,938,874 to Stone, U.S. Pat. No. 2,455,583 to Ireson, U.S. Pat. No. 2,532,820 to Pelt, U.S. Pat. No. 2,549,727 to Van Toll, PCT Published Application WO-82/03536 to Stewart and particularly U.S. Pat. No. 2,588,934 to O'Neill, Jr. in which a lighter of conventional design is stored in the stem and is movable to the top of the bowl to effect ignition of the contents.
The disadvantages of the ‘top lighters’ is that either the presence of a cumbersome mechanism is required or extensive design is required to incorporate the ignition means within the form of the smoking device.
Another approach to a self-igniting a pipe-like smoking device is to ignite the contents of the smoking bowl from the bottom of the bowl, as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 1,157,771 to Fulton. Other representative examples of ‘bottom lighters’ are U.S. Pat. No. 3,402,723 to Hu and U.S. Pat. No. 3,882,876 to Covington. These last three mentioned references also provide for ignition by and electric element placed within the bowl of the smoking device.
Also known is the use of piezoelectric phenomena to provide the ignition means, see U.S. Pat. No. 3,698,400 to Tucker.
The disadvantages of the above ‘bottom lighters’ is that the ignition of the combustible material, normally aided by drawing of air through the mouthpiece, is hindered by the fact that the drawing of air will prevent the ignition because the ignition source is downstream from the contents of the bowl.
Finally, there is U.S. Pat. No. 4,276,892 to Isquinta which teaches the use of a moveable ignition means which extends in the bowl during the ignition phase of using the smoking device and is withdrawn after ignition.
Again, the complexity of such a mechanism is overwhelming.